Nonchalance…

“You should stop being jealous…” he said, in the aftermath of their lovemaking. “…She will always be mine.” His eyes, boring into her soul, finished the sentence.

In that brief instant when their eyes interlocked, there was a calmness akin to an impending storm’s. Like opponents holding each other’s gaze before a sparring match – to the death. That brief instant where the truth, unpalatable yet indelible, lies buck-naked in the recesses of emotional blackness, shorn of every layer of pretense and artifice. Just there. No reason, no excuses.

“Sure,” she replied, feigning nonchalance, after what could have been a heartbeat or an eternity, holding his merciless stare.

The love he’d promised her and sworn was his very skin seemed to escape from his pores like the sweat evaporating in the coolness of the night.

Even as their gaze remained steadfast and unrelenting, in the ensuing silence, only one of their hearts shattered into a million pieces soundlessly.